


His Thoughts Were Turned

by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Autistic Túrin, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mind Rape, Mistaken Identity, Sibling Incest, but god does he have to earn his happy ending, that is canon background turin/nienor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster
Summary: When Niënor looked into Glaurung's eyes, he stole all her memories from her.When Túrin looks into Glaurung's eyes, he steals only the most important thing there is.
Relationships: Beleg Cúthalion/Túrin Turambar
Comments: 30
Kudos: 41





	His Thoughts Were Turned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daphnerunning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/gifts).



> mad thanks (and blame) to daphnerunning for getting me into this ship it is killing me <3
> 
> title repurposed somewhat disingenuously from The Lay of the Children of Húrin
> 
> also this IS canon compliant I will write a damn meta post about it at some point I swear
> 
> update: i wrote the damn meta post lol
> 
> here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990899

“I have a question.”

It has taken him almost half an hour to arrange the words in his mind and get them out of his mouth, because he’s nervous.Two years he has been in Doriath, and he still gets so many things wrong.This one is particularly hard for him to talk about, but he trusts Beleg, if he trusts no one else.He knows Beleg will not talk too loud or too fast, will not mock him if his speech falters, or for asking a question he should not have to ask.Indeed, the Elf smiles sideways at him.“Ask, then.”

“Why do people get angry when I don’t look into their eyes?”

Beleg puts his head on one side and seems to consider.“May I ask you a question for a question?” he asks, finally, gently.

“That _is_ a question,” Túrin points out, and Beleg laughs.

“True,” he agrees.“Then may I ask you _two_ questions for a question, poor an exchange as that may be?”

Túrin nods slowly.“Don’t—be angry—if I can’t answer?”

“Of course not.Why do you not look into people’s eyes?”

It takes a minute or two for Túrin to think it through and assemble an answer.“I don’t like it.It makes me tired.It scares me.”

Beleg nods seriously.“Perhaps it is a difference between our people,” he says.“To my people, it is a natural expression of trust.It does not take effort, unless perhaps we are hiding something.Perhaps it is that my folk mistake your intent—but do not fear, they will grow to understand, I’m sure.”He reaches out and pauses, perhaps remembering that Túrin sometimes flinches from touch.“May I?”Túrin nods, and Beleg ruffles his hair.“In the meantime, perhaps you can meet them halfway and try to do it sometimes?You’re brave enough, aren’t you?”

“Of course!”Túrin scowls.“Braver than anyone except my father!”

He teaches himself to raise his chin and look into people’s eyes, when he can, drills himself on it.He wants people to know when he trusts them.He wants Beleg to know that he trusts him.

Years later, Beleg is dead and Túrin’s soul is screaming and he is afraid, afraid of mighty footsteps and a roar that sets the world aflame, so he reminds himself that he is brave and lifts his chin and his gaze and sees—

* * *

Afterwards, Túrin never remembered much of his fight with Glaurung.There was an impression of golden eyes and a cold, distant voice.When he was younger, Túrin thought, he had had such dark fits before, an inability to interact with the world or seem to understand what was happening.Someone had brought him out of them, sometimes, it seemed to him, but he could not think who it might have been.It was not his mother or father; perhaps it was someone he had only dreamed of.He had been a lonely child in Doriath, surrounded by Elves and not Men.It was no surprise that he might have imagined a companion who would aid him.

When he seemed to wake, as from a dark dream, in Brodda’s hall, he thought of Finduilas, dear companion, whom he had left behind in that strange darkness when the dragon’s madness came upon him.She was dear to him, and he must reach her.He must.What was a hero’s purpose if it was not to save his friends?Perhaps it was she whose hands he seemed to remember touching his hair with gentle reverence.It did not seem quite right, but there was no time to puzzle over it, because whether it was she or else, she was in grave danger now, and he must save her.

He did not save her.By the time he reached the place where she had fallen, she was buried deep within the earth.Túrin’s speech left him, as it always had, no matter how he struggled, in moments of great trouble.He wanted to whisper words of comfort that perhaps she might still hear—or, no, the souls of Elves were said to flee to a place where fate was woven when they died, weren’t they?Unless they refused to go, but she would not refuse.She must be safe there, now, he told himself.The wind muttered in his ears, but there was no speech in that either.There was only the softest of melodies emerging from his throat—a fragment of an old song, perhaps a song his mother had sung to him when he was young.It made him cry harder, and he dug his fingers into the earth and remembered soothing hands upon his hair, but the thought fled when he tried to grasp it.

For many months after Finduilas’s death, he had a dream that seemed to take many forms, but always the core of it was the same.He was ill, or perhaps hurt, and he woke up in a little bed in one of the lodges of the marchwardens of Doriath.The fire was crackling in the hearth and a tall figure with hair of gold was bending over it, the firelight shining on their ugly red boots.The figure came to Túrin’s bedside, and Túrin tugged at their arm, because he could not speak, and he thought they might be angry.But they were never angry.They just put a hand in his hair, and he felt as if everything was all right again.

Sometimes, that was all.Other times, he plucked at the figure’s clothes, with an eager heat surging through him, and they laughed together as they tumbled between the sheets.They held each other close, and Túrin listened to a frantic heartbeat and kissed a pair of broad shoulders, and a curtain of golden hair shielded them both.The dreams were always sweet, sweeter than waking, but Túrin never saw the figure’s face.

One day, leading his men abroad near the Haudh-en-Elleth, a lightning storm swept up out of nowhere.Túrin hated storms, had always hated storms—had he always hated storms?Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he thought he had not.That something had happened to him in the midst of a storm, something nameless and terrible, but he couldn’t seem to think what it would be.He had never liked noises, in any case, so it made _sense_ that he didn’t like storms.Yet he was uneasy, even more uneasy than he usually was when they passed near Finduilas’s grave.

They were just passing near it when the sky forked with brilliant flame, and he saw a figure lying prone and huddled against the earth, naked and pale.Túrin took a step—

_he’s dead he’s dead I’ve killed him_

saw blond hair and muddy feet

_no no no no what have I done no_

was on the ground beside, his knees stinging

_please no please just breathe don’t leave me_

the figure turned over, and he saw grey eyes reflecting the lightning

the shoulders moved

_yes breathe please breathe, yes, oh_

and he gathered the young woman into his arms.He did not quite have words, but he could hum softly to her,

_you’re alive you’re alive I’ll never ask for anything again I’ll keep you safe_

and she nestled her hair against his shoulder,

_I won’t leave you again never again I swear it_

as if comforted.

* * *

Níniel, he called her.She did not remember her name.She did not remember how to speak.Túrin felt achingly protective of her.He knew what it was like not to be able to speak, for the words simply not to come.He cared for her and held her, his tall, sweet, golden sunflower, until her terrors abated.She was so brave and funny and courageous.When she started learning to speak again, they would walk together and he would point out all the plants at the side of the path and tell her their names, as someone had done once when he was a child in Nargothrond.Mablung, it must have been Mablung.Mablung had been kind to him, hadn’t he?

Love blossomed between them, slow and sweet and a little vulnerable, because he had found someone he was looking for.No, he had found the one he was looking for.She was joyful, and he loved her joy.She was kind, and he loved her kindness.One thing only seemed to trouble him: her eyes were as blue as forget-me-nots—but when he had first seen them, had they not been grey?

He loved her.He had never loved another.It did not matter.

(He told her that he would lay down his sword for her.It felt like the culmination of a promise he had never made.It felt like he had been given a second chance.)

They said their wedding vows before friends in Brethil.For some reason, he remembered a conversation he had once had with his dear friend Finduilas.He didn’t know why he thought of it, for his beloved was as human as he was.But his mind kept slipping back to it, even as he gazed upon Níniel’s beautiful face.He had been sitting at a window, staring out at a heavy rain beating down, and wishing—wishing for something he could no longer remember.

“Elves marry forever, don’t they?”

“Why do you ask me such a question?” He could not read her tone of voice, and he was too weary to try.Instead, he traced the path of one of the raindrops with a finger, to where it joined with another.

“Just—it’s something I need to understand.”Too hard to speak, for some reason.He couldn’t remember what had caused the pain twisting inside him, either.

“Yes, Elves marry forever.”

“What happens if one of you die?” His voice was too rough, too harsh, even to his own ears.

“The bond remains,” she said simply.“I know it is different for Men—”

“I prefer the Elvish way,” he said, and he imagined shattering the window with a fist.When he looked over, he saw that she had flinched back.“Oh—I’m—sorry.”

“No,” she said quietly.“No, you’ve done nothing wrong.I just—didn’t know.”

He still preferred the Elvish way, he thought.If Níniel died, he would not marry another.

He and Níniel had good times together.They laughed together.In bed, they discovered how to please each other.He buried his face in her golden hair until it was all he could see.She would laugh and pet him, and neither of them would ever bother if the other stopped using words.If he couldn’t say, _I love you_ , it was because of that—because words themselves were difficult, at times of great emotion.And Níniel always understood that.

Glaurung returned, and Túrin went to slay a dragon.He knew it would not be easy, and he knew he might die.But there was no alternative; they were bound together, mind and bone.When Glaurung’s venom filled his lungs, most of what he felt was guilty relief.He had always known he would not live very long, and for so long now he had feared that he would be the one who outlived those he loved.If there was a mercy in his doom, it would be dying before them, cruel though it was for Níniel and the child.

But somehow he woke again and was not dead.Everything was still around him.The dragon’s body lay quiescent against the earth, and the air was filled with poisonous vapors.A sense of dread lay heavy on him, and he could not say why, as if, despite the dragon’s death, some dreadful beast lurked yet in the shadows.

His spouse.He must find his spouse.

 _Elves marry forever_.

Not so Men.Men could not marry forever, for there _was_ no forever for one of them.He must find his spouse.Grey eyes smiled at him, drawing him onwards, and Túrin walked out of the murk, following them.

They told him Níniel was dead.They told him what she had said, and he did not believe them.He ran.He needed to find his spouse. 

Something took him towards Doriath, some insistent, desperate need inside his chest.Something drew him unerringly through the woods, thick with the scent of honey.Carpets of purple-blue forget-me-nots lay everywhere, but it was not them that he sought.He thought of red upon the dark ground and flinched aside.

There was an old marchwarden’s hut here, the glass of the windows shattered.Dust lay heavy upon everything.He entered, heedless, though the door hung half-off its hinges, looking around desperately.This was wrong.This wasn’t fair.He was _hurt_.This was where he came for healing.This was the hutfrom his dreams.From his memories.

But there was no healing here.

A little way from the hut, walking round and round, increasingly desperate, he came upon a group of Elves, Mablung leading them.Mablung, who had told him the names of every plant that grew within these woods.No.Mablung had not done that.It had been someone else.It had been B—

It had been his spouse.

No, it could not have been his spouse.The broad-shouldered figure with golden hair flowing across its shoulders was Níniel.Níniel had never come here.He had been the one to teach her the names of plants; it had not been the other way around.

This wasn’t right.It wasn’t fair.He was hurt.

_Where was his spouse?_

Mablung’s words made no sense to him at first.Níniel was his spouse—tall and blond and beautiful (but her eyes were blue, her eyes were blue), laughing and loving.She could not be his sister.

If Níniel was Niënor, if Níniel was his _sister_ —she could not be his spouse.But they had gone to bed together, Túrin thought; he knew they had.They had married as Men do.They had spoken marriage vows.He had known she was the one he was looking for. 

If she was his sister—then he had been searching for her.But not only for her, perhaps.

He ran.

Something was roaring loudly in his ears.Someone was crying, lost and far away.Thunder, there was thunder.No, it was not thunder, for it went on and on.

The sound snapped off, sound to silence in a moment.

The wind blew softly through the seregon.There was no one here but Túrin and his lover, those grey eyes clear and unclouded.Túrin’s hands felt rough and clumsy clutched in his lover’s slender fingers; he felt tall and Mannish and too big, though his lover was near as tall as he was.“So…so for Elves—it is just the vows and the joining?And that forever?” he said, and he was proud of himself that he managed the words.

His lover nodded.“The vows and the joining, and that forever,” he echoed, rubbing his thumbs across Túrin’s hands.“If you will, I will it as well.”

Túrin swallowed.“The vows,” he said, unsteadily.“The—words.You know I am—I am—” The emotions welling up already played their part in silencing him, and he bit his lips with frustration.

“Ai, love.”His lover kissed him softly.“I will say the vows and you can nod or shake your head.”

“I—I would not—shake—”

“But the choice is yours, and you will have the choice.It is choice that makes such vows, not words.”

Nodding, Túrin squeezed his lover’s hands between his.He seemed to have been waiting for this moment for his whole life, since before he had any notion of what they would really mean.His lover’s golden head bent towards his, like a sunflower bending towards the sun, and he murmured, slow and quiet and clear, “In the sight of Eru Ilúvatar, I wed thee, Túrin Húrin’s son.If it is thy will as well as mine.In the sight of Eru Ilúvatar, do you wed me?”

Shakily, Túrin nodded, and then he pulled his husband close and kissed him deeply.They stood like that, pressed together, knee deep in red flowers, and Túrin was crying, but he didn’t know why.No—it was not this Túrin who was crying, but another, who watched a scene that he thought he had forgotten from somewhere far away, amidst the angry spray and roar of the Cabed-en-Aras.

His sword was cold in his hand.He heard himself speaking, but from very far away. _“Hail, Gurthang, iron of death, you alone now remain!But what lord or loyalty do you know, save the hand that wields you?From no blood will you shrink.Will you take Túrin Turambar?Will you slay me swiftly?”_

The sword answered, in a voice as rough and ruined as Túrin’s own, though it did not echo as his had done, _“Yes, I will drink your blood, that I may forget the blood of Beleg my master.”_

Beleg.Grey-eyed Beleg, whom he had wed with the blood-red seregon all around.Grey-eyed Beleg, his spouse—his husband, with broad shoulders and golden hair, tall and laughing and joyful.Grey-eyed Beleg, whose glassy dead eyes had reflected the lightning after Túrin’s fatal sword stroke slew him.

Túrin had killed him.And then he had betrayed him.

 _The vows and the joining, and that forever_.

There was bright red upon the dark earth, like the seregon that had bloomed upon his wedding day.Túrin felt cold.He heard the roaring of the Cabed-en-Aras.

The sound snapped off, sound to silence in a moment.

* * *

He was hurt.It was dark.

Túrin stumbled along a trail he could barely see, in a forest with naked branches spreading above his head.He had been here just a little time ago, he thought, and he paused for an instant.There was a light ahead, and he went towards it, wading through knee-high flowers, and stopping outside the marchwardens’ hut.There were tears welling up in his eyes.He could not go in.He was hurt, yes, but he did not deserve to be healed.

Before he could turn away, the door opened and the warm golden light spilled out, gleaming on red seregon and the red boots of the person who had opened the door.“Túrin?” he said in a low voice; the firelight limned his golden head.

Túrin sobbed.

“Ai, it is you—” The door was flung fully open with a crash, and there were arms about him.Túrin clutched at Beleg’s shirt, pressing himself as close as he could.The words, always difficult, were far from his tongue, but almost immediately Beleg’s mouth pressed against his, sealing off any attempt.

He did not deserve this, but he could not help himself.He deepened the kiss, tasting his husband’s mouth for the first time in over a decade, one hand mantling through that blond-gold hair.When they broke apart, he made a soft, sad noise, but Beleg put an arm about him and drew him towards the hut.

Túrin halted on the threshold, tears flowing steadily down his face, shaking his head.

“What is it?” Beleg asked.“What is it, love?Thou art safe here, I promise.”

The words were so far away, but he had to explain.He had to.Beleg could not think he was objecting to him.“I—betrayed you.”

“No!”

Túrin nodded fiercely, wrapping his arms about himself.

“No, you did not.You fool.”Beleg stepped back for an instant.“Would you account it betrayal in another to be drugged?To be bespelled?”He must have seen the flash of grief and surprise in Túrin’s eyes.“Of course I know, love.And I do not account it a betrayal.”He paused.“May I touch you?”

Standing still in the doorway, Túrin did not know.He felt tugged this way and that, buffeted as if in a great wind.Beleg made no move to touch him without the indication, just gave him a small, sad smile.“Whatever you need, my love.”

So _few_ people he had ever given him that choice.Túrin sobbed again, and reached for Beleg, stumbling into the hut and letting those arms fold about him.“I’m—sorry.I’m sorry.”

A sigh.“Without need.”Beleg kissed the top of his head.“I missed you so _much_ , you fool.”

Túrin let Beleg tug him over to the little bed in front of the roaring fire, leaning into his neck and kissing it, kissing his shoulder, kissing whatever he could reach.Beleg held him and laughed.Moisture landed on Túrin’s nose, and he realized Beleg was crying, too.He curled up in Beleg’s lap, pressing his head to Beleg’s chest, and he could hear the heartbeat, even though he was sure he shouldn’t be able to.

“I’m sorry—I never—I broke our vows,” he finished miserably, feeling young and stupid and overwhelmed with guilt.

“You didn’t.”Beleg kissed him again and pressed his own hand to Túrin’s heart.“The vows and the joining, and that forever,” he murmured.“Your heart did not turn from me, beloved, no matter what was done to your mind.”

“How can you know that?” Túrin burst out angrily, though he did not move from Beleg’s lap—he was too tall and spilling out a little, but he did not move from it all the same.

“Because I know _you_.”Beleg’s hands in his hair, turning his head.He did not kiss him this time but only pressed their foreheads together.“And we will never be parted again, my love.”

This could not be right.Some half-remembered fragment of Elvish lore came into Túrin’s mind.“Elves…and Men?” he said uncertainly.

Beleg deposited him backwards onto the bed with a merry laugh, entwining their fingers and kissing his neck, then lower.Túrin groaned and gasped, suddenly filled with eager heat.“The lord of the dead has decreed that as did Lúthien Tinúviel, Beleg Cúthalion shall follow his husband and share his fate.He tried to be stubborn about it, but he was not as stubborn as I was.”

“Oh,” breathed Túrin, his eyes welling up with tears yet again as he traced the lines of his husband’s face with his hands.“Oh.”His lips moved, but once again his words were stilled, and Beleg pressed three fingers to his mouth.

“Hush,” he murmured.“I know.Thou dost not have to speak, _melindo_.Thou never has to speak.I know thee beyond all others.”

Túrin whimpered and licked across the fingers; he felt Beleg shudder against him with pleasure.

“Abide with me here a while,” Beleg whispered, kissing him on his forehead, his eyes, nose, lips.“Heal.And then we will go.And wherever we go, it will be together.I will never leave thy side again.”

Túrin nodded and reached for him, and the golden curtain of Beleg’s hair fell about them both.


End file.
